Careers
What is a career in broadcasting?
Radio and television bookmark our lives through sound and images that preserve moments in time that trigger memories of where we were and what we were doing when historic events occurred. Broadcasts touch our emotions, connect us with world events, and help us prepare for natural disasters. With radio and television, we are entertained, informed, influenced and motivated to action.
Whether your goal is to be on air or behind-the-scenes, understanding the business broadcasting will increase your chances of gaining entry to and succeeding in this exciting and rewarding industry.
5 Great Job Search Tips
Landing your dream job will depend a lot more than just having a great resume; you’ll want to have a strong job search technique and thoroughly understand the general recruiting process. There’s a boat load of information online that helps people with their job search. The issue isn’t finding this type of information; rather, the issue becomes being overwhelmed with far too much information and trying to identify exactly what works. The five tips below will help you with all aspects of your job search.
1. Understand Applicant Tracking Systems
Every business today use some form of an applicant tracking system (ATS), which are how organizations manage the thousands of resumes they receive. When you apply for a position, the company’s ATS will scan your resume and score your qualifications in comparison with the advertised job description. The people’s resumes that score the highest will be the ones that are reviewed, with the rest being passed over.
The ATS will usually look for the exact job title to weed out individuals who haven’t held this role (or a related one) before. Once your resume is seen by a hiring manager, it’s important to keep it concise. LinkedIn showed that the average recruiter spends only 6-seconds looking at a resume, which means that simply having a resume score high in the ATS isn’t enough. The resume must demonstrate the required skills and expertise required for the job and showcase the value a candidate brings.
2. Parsing Job Descriptions
The ideal way to ensure your resume includes the relevant terms and keywords is to narrow your search to jobs that you’re most qualified for. Ideally, you want your resume to match most of the required qualifications and experience advertised in the listing. Additionally, you should list specific examples of how you delivered on the required qualifications and experiences listed.
Understand that a resume is a marketing brochure with the sole purpose to get you an interview. The best resumes include the main keywords, how the candidate incorporated the qualifications and experience necessary, and clearly identify a candidate’s value.
3. Network, Network, Network
The best way to get hired is to connect with the right people who have the decision-making ability to hire you. One way to do this is to search for individuals who know and work for the decision makers and see if you can connect with them, with the hopes of potentially getting a referral. The single best method for applying to positions is to personally know somebody who works where you want work and give them your resume to forward it to the hiring manager.
Today, more than 95% of recruiters use LinkedIn to vet candidates. LinkedIn is by far the most important social media networking tool and failing to create a profile will significantly reduce your chances for an interview. Consider your LinkedIn profile an extension of your resume that also includes your photograph and isn’t restricted to two-pages.
4. Use Executive Recruiters
Executive recruiters are another great resource that is completely free and may result in a great new job. You can search for executive recruiters in your location and career specialty and reach out to them by phone or email. Tell them about yourself and what types of positions you’re looking for. They may be working with companies where you would be a perfect fit. Additionally, it’s possible that some executive recruiters may reach out to businesses to try and get you placed. This usually only occurs with highly valuable candidate’s who are in strong demand, but it’s still something to include in your job search strategy.
5. Use the Best Job Boards
There are dozens of job boards out there and most of them offer similar services. However, there are three that have their own unique features along with offering RSS feeds to keep you updated on the latest offerings. LinkedIn has become the database of choice for recruiters to find candidates. LinkedIn allows you to connect with people in the companies you’re seeking and directly apply to the jobs you’re interested in. You can also quickly identify the hiring managers using LinkedIn.
Glassdoor is another great job search site that also has detailed information about the working environment for thousands of companies along with posted salaries. Finally, Indeed is a very robust job board that lets you search through millions of available positions gathered from thousands of company websites and other job boards. Indeed also has a powerful RSS feature that allows you to stay up-to-date with the latest developments and job openings from the companies you select. Incorporating these 5 great job search tips will boost your job search efforts considerably and help you land that interview!
Contact HAB
P.O. Box 61562
Honolulu, HI 96839
Phone: 808-599-1455
Jamie Hartnett, Executive Director
Jamie@HawaiiBroadcasters.com